Cleaning The Office
by Adelheid A
Summary: Carmelita cleans her office before Constable Cooper's first day on the job.


**AN: Hello, this is my first Sly Cooper fanfic. It takes place after the end of Sly 3. The summary is that Carmelita has to clean out her office before Sly comes and works as her partner the next morning. Please remember to review. I would love to hear your opinion : D Enjoy!**

It had to be done tonight: remove any evidence of the existence of the notorious Sly Cooper. Inspector Carmelita Fox (technically a promotion had changed the rank, but that's a minor detail for tonight) could no longer dance around the subject of clearing out her office. She had been avoiding the place for a few days now which meant that she had exactly three hours to clean it. The Inspector tried to rationalize it as just another job in the line of duty. If anything, she should be happy. The infamous Master Thief has left his life of crime and what's more, he has joined the side of justice (her side in other words).

The last few weeks had been emotionally draining. After all, why shouldn't it be when you realize that the obsession you had for catching this one person was actually love for him. She could have lost him too, he could have died at the hands of that jealous doctor and down would go all her life's work to arrest him. It's a cruel fact of life that one only realizes just how important someone is when they are being crushed to death and hence leave you alone for the rest of your life with a very haunting memory of their slow and painful demise. Forget about not being able to put him behind bars then.

She never did arrest him in the end. In fact, she never will be able to. Perhaps it was this feeling of lost time and opportunities that were slowly eating away at her.

No, no. That was no excuse, she thought to herself. It had to be done tonight for tomorrow, that ring-tail would be working for her and the last thing his amnesiac mind needed was a reminder that he isn't who he thinks he is. With these consequences in mind, she woke herself up at 2:00 am in the morning and got herself right on the task at hand. Carmelita quickly grabbed five or more large cardboard boxes, placed them in the back seat of her red convertible. Powered by two cups of homemade yet decent coffee (regrettably her favourite cafe wasn't open), she drove to work.

The quiet Parisian streets at this unholy hour were eerily relaxing. As she drove in silence, she mentally ran through the battle plan. Once she got to the office, she would take the boxes up, clean everything Cooper related and then get the hell out of there to get three hours of sleep (if she's lucky). The plan was simple, nothing complicated. But why did she feel an unsettling feeling as she approached the Interpol office? Whatever it was, it had to wait because the Inspector had a job to do.

The walk up the elevator wasn't too bad after getting passed the complicated security measures that seemed to get even more so every six months and strolling by Paul the sleeping security guard. As the elevator reached the floor she selected, she felt that she had brought too many boxes. I mean, six boxes, she couldn't have that much stuff about that raccoon. It's as if she was a crazy fangirl...which in retrospect wasn't that faraway from the truth...

As she walked down the hallway, towards her office door, Carmelita was tempted to turn around. Perhaps she did need more boxes?

But she decided to go with what she had in the end. She stopped right in front of the rouge door. Though the office had her symbol and name plaque on it, it was just a veil to cover who it really belonged to and has been increasingly so for the last three years. Behind this door was a sanctuary that played tribute to one person. It was filled with objects and memorbilias that were now relics of another time.

She didn't immediately enter the door as she had to take a moment to breath to rid her of her hesitation. Once she walked out this door, the room would be completely different from when she walked in. Carmelita would have remained in the state of trance had it not been for a chilly autumn wind that whistled outside the window. Needless to say, she had work to do.

Quickly swiping her ID card, followed by an eye scan, Carmelita deactivated the alarm system. She slowed down a bit again as the Inspector turned the brass doorknob ever so slowly almost as if it would shatter if she didn't do it delicately. She did not immediately enter, as she took another moment to absorb the atmosphere. Frankly, she did not know where to start so she started to look for something with the least sentimental value. She stepped into the room, the sanctuary, with cautiousness and searching eyes.

Her eyes caught the attention of the recent photographs the Cooper Gang took the liberty of taking on the Australian endeavour. She had to admit she was actually more amused than angry when saw those zany photos. But that is another story for another time...or never really. She took the photos and carefully (perhaps a little too carefully) added it to a dossier file on the thief. Taping the picture permanently to a blank page next to other photographs. One could say, though she would not admit it, even now, that it was actually a much more casual item such as an album book.

Then there were those stupid calling cards. Oh how it frustrated her at times, more like all the time. She had quite the collection of them, each with witty remarks that always taunted her. They were annoyingly flirtatious and always ardent to remind her how close yet so far she had gotten in getting him. He knew how and enjoyed it a little to much to anger her. She always remembered him smiling at her (she takes a little solace in knowing that it wasn't always laughing) as she cursed at him slipping from her very hands (both literally and figuratively).

The giant world map that hung on the wall in front of her desk was almost covered in sharpie marks. She had bought a new one recently to replace this old one she had been using for three years. A clean start to map out his new locations and criminal activities. The Inspector had hoped that this would be the last map she had to replace, she was determined to catch him soon. She reflected that thinking that their game of cops and robbers would always go on was innocent in a way. Everything must come to an end after all, sometimes not the way you imagined.

The Inspector traced each of the marked locations in the order she remembered marking the; all the while, passing the Russian volcanoes, the city of Paris and finally the some Island in the Pacific. As her finger touched the locations, she smiled a bit as she bittersweetly remembered the summary of her professional work in the last three years. Which in retrospect wasn't always as professional as she thought it was as there were times she did help the ring-tail fight of his demons. The most recent one being a crazy, evil genius of a baboon named Dr. M. But enough of this, there was more to do still. With that, she took it down, removing each of the thumb tacks carefully as if not to damage the used map. After cautiously rolling it, she placed it into the box along with other items.

One by one she took down things and stored them in the boxes. The files, the books, photos, letters, newspaper articles, calling cards, and other souvenirs were all put neatly and carefully in their respective boxes. It was quiet and appropriately so. This whole thing was a scared ritual that required a silence and the utmost concentration. It was essentially a ceremony of goodbye after all. A funeral of sorts.

She continued cleaning out the office and somehow unconsciously and miraculously avoided the bottle of champagne on her desk. Yes, it was _that_ bottle of champagne. There was no sentimentality behind this, she had already been doing that for hours now. It was as if her mind had accepted the curious present and uncertain yet hopefully future. It was the last thing on the desk that needed packing next to the postcards and one last forgotten calling card that taunted, "better luck next time". What she did know was that whether she put this bottle away or destroyed it, it would never be opened. Well she could open it in the office and make the ex-thief drink it too, but a part of her felt slightly guilty rather than mischievous. That would be a brilliant plan, almost as a pay back for all those years of pulling the wool over her eyes. It was certainly something to think about.

In the end, she decided to pack it in a separate cardboard box, deciding its fate later. She then loaded the boxes on a trolley and rolled it into one of the locked closets outside her office. It would be safe here until she called the Interpol officials to come and remove them. Either way, what happened to these relics were in her hands at the moment.

As she placed the final box down in the closet. There was an sense of relief, but a bittersweet relief. Sly Cooper the Master Thief was, in her terms, officially no more. No more.

It never dawned upon her, until recently, how much she enjoyed chasing after Cooper. He was always there stealing something and she was always there running after him. The question perhaps was, now what? They were obviously done playing cops and robbers and now they would just be cops. It was the end of an era. It was sad to see a part of her and Sly's life end, a part of her life that she took for granted. Ironically, she always had tried to end it by incessantly trying to put him under arrest. But now the thief would no longer be active, admittedly not the way she imagined, but she was more than happy that it happened the way it did. What would she have been like if she did manage to permanently put him behind bars?

Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by her alarm she set on her cellphone. How symbolic she thought, a wake up call to live in the present and not on ifs.

Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox locked the doors, went down to the parking lot and started up her car. The sky was getting lighter now, though most of the city was still sleeping. This was a new beginning now. The future was uncertain and the map was now clean. She had to learn to navigate this new territory. As she exited the parking lot and finally reached her home, she felt a bit tired. Whatever the future holds, she would have to wait till morning to find out. There's one thing for sure though, she doesn't have the pleasure of worrying where the Master Thief will strike next. With that, she fell asleep with a small smile.

**AN: Thanks for reading this long one-shot. It was inspired by this really amazing one-shot (that sadly I can no longer find) in which Sly contemplates whether he should tell Carmelita if he remembers everything as he holds her in bed. It was a very moving fic.**


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